venerdì 9 ottobre 2009

Interview with Diane Barcelowsy

a)I live in Brooklyn. I'm an art teacher. 31 years old I have one green eye and one blue eye.

q)Tell us about your humble beginnings, When did you you first realized that you wanted to be an artist?

a)One of my earliest memories is drawing lines on paper and pretending the lines are roads and my pencil is the car. I guess I always found escaping and daydreaming on paper more exciting then other things growing up and I kept drawing so the practice and a strange imagination made me into the artist I am today

q)What are your tools of the trade and why?

a)Dip pen and india ink mostly then a lot of stuff after that.

q)Who or what gives you inspiration on your morbid art?

a)The morbid world. It's easy to want to escape from it all or really look at it straight in the eyes. So I do both when I'm making things.

q)Is your artistic background self-taught or did you go to college to study?

a)I went to college for photography and then switched to fine arts. The school basically gave a space to let loose and I still don't know how to properly gesso a canvas. I think its good that they let us do what we wanted and figure out mistakes and tricks along the way , but it cost to much money.

q)How do you keep "fresh" within your industry?

a)I don't pay attention to whats going on so I never even know if I am fresh or not

q)What are some of your current projects?

a)I was commissioned to do a drawing for "the Sak" to use on an eco -friendly bag line that will be out spring 2010. They all look amazing and each bag that sells donates money to the nature conservatory (plant a billion trees fund) http://www.plantabillion.org/ and I am really excited about a group show in Japan at the Waiting Room Gallery with other cinders artist like Maya Hayuk, and Erika Somogyi (whom i have known for a real long time) opens in nov-jan.

q)Which of your works are you the most proud of? And why?

a)This one of two elephants that got lost in the mail on the way to Beaver Projects Gallery. It took forever and my hand went numb drawing it but it was beautiful and it travelled with me, I worked on it driving up the west coast to my friends farm in northern California. It was so beautiful there I look at the drawing and I think of my friend and her husband and their dog and cat and drawing these elephants outside by their garden. I also love these three drawings that I just donated to a silent auction for the Movember Foundation to help fund research for prostate cancer. I lost my grandfather and Uncle to prostate cancer and my father is a survivor. http://us.movember.com/

q)Are there any areas, techniques, mediums, projects in your field that you have yet to try?

a)There's plenty of things i haven't tried but I am not to interested in things that become more of a technical process, I like drawing and painting because you are more in touch with the collective unconscious

q)What do you do to keep yourself motivated and avoid burn-out?

a)I have been making lists of drawing ideas to make for years, while waiting in lines at the bank or sitting in traffic. I have so many that i still need to start or finish and I work on about 5-8 at a time.

q)how do you spend most of your free time?

a)Ha.. drawing/painting I also play music with my friends Brina Thurston, Quentin Rowin and Mike Woods

q)What contemporary artists or developments in art interest you?

a)I love people like Nils Udo who make art outdoors and go for long quiet walks , who are really in touch with the solitude of nature I can really connect with those feelings. Joseph Beuys for being one of the founding members of the green party, writing pop songs about Reagan, and trying to plant 7,000 trees and always Grandma Moses for creating scenes with so much going on in small towns then giving the paintings as gifts to family and friends on birthdays and weddings. I want to live in one of her towns.

q)We really like some of your pictures, how can we get our hands on them? Do you sell them? How?

a)I sell them through Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn, and Beaver Projects in Copenhagen although sometimes people just e-mail me directly if they live close by it's better to see the art in person.